Lost property at school.

[ThisLittleKitty]

3 weeks ago I bought my son a new coat for school. Anyway about a week ago he came out with no coat after school I asked him where it was and he said he left it in the lunch hall. Anyway I asked reception where lost property was and they told me. Only it wasn't in there, I mentioned it again to his teacher as I saw an identical coat hanging up outside another class (same year) well she never did. Aibu to expect it back! If he lost it in school then it should be there yes I get he left it there but he is only 5 and yes it had his name written inside.

I really don't understand why you would steal another child's coat/jumper/PE kit. Luckily, never happened to us- occasionally stuff goes missing but it's always been returned next day.

I think all you can do is look in lost property again, maybe ask to have a quick look in hall etc and see. If not, I guess you'll just have to get another coat. Or use his old one until you can afford another.

I've thrown away Armani jackets with a name in - is it my problem?

I don't understand this. What is the system for return laundry to owners, and why didn't it apply to the jacket?

(I went to a boarding school. Every item of clothing had a name tag and a house tag, and was left in the named persons laundry locker. Don't recall losing anything in my whole time there, but then I couldn't afford to. No Armani jacket, a school blazer was my most expensive clothing item. Not that that went in the wash.)

things got stolen a lot in my school as the teachers were really hot on making sure you had the right kit and it would be trouble if you didn't (never let you off if you said your parent wouldn't get it for you) so people used to pinch others PE kit/science overalls/blazers regularly, names got cut out etc. Also it was quite common for kids who weren't liked to have their kit stolen so they'd get into trouble!

Firesuit the laundry is sorted and collected by the kids. The kids can't be arsed to sort it properly and once it is sorted can't be arsed to collect it from the laundry room. If I'm not careful the laundry room becomes a wardrobe extension for them.

Which is why once a week I swipe anything left lying around and ditch it. Named or not.

We had paid staff who sorted clothes into "lockers." (And also ironed the shirts, or maybe that was done by the laundry service.) (The "lockers" weren't lockers, no doors, can't summon up the right word right now.)

People leaving clothes in the laundry room wasn't a problem. If you walked all the way to the laundry room to fetch whatever you had run out of, you'd take everything in your "locker", you wouldn't want to make another trip. I do recall us being reminded to empty lockers, so
we weren't allowed to leave clothes there.

So your throwing out perfectly good clothes just because they haven’t been claimed?

Fair enough not chasing people but surely they could go to a charity shop or homeless charity and actually do some good?

Which is why once a week I swipe anything left lying around and ditch it. Named or not

Do you mean you actually put clothes in the bin?

The charity bin, as I think I said. Its a big recycling bin and gets collected by the council for who knows what

You did say charity first but then ditch and now recycle which to me are three different things.

It seems very bad for the environment to be recycling perfectly usable clothes, does the school encourage the pupils to think of the wider world?

I don't know what school you are at Lionguard, but not all children at boarding schools are loaded and privileged. Who knows, they may be wearing Armani jackets to keep up with their friends.

I am really really shocked at your lack of empathy or care. Is the Head aware of this? Is it school policy, properly communicated to parents, or do you just do anyway?

It's only 55 children, not 700. I can't see that it is that difficult to reunite named items with their owners.

As someone who has worked in schools I can confirm that parents DO steal coats. I've had several complains where the parent has complained a coat has gone missing and another child has suddenly had an identical coat with the tag cut out, new name wrote in and it's only been because the original parent has stitched a name or discrete tag somewhere the stealing parent has missed.

Lots of swapping battered shoes and pe kit for new occurs too.

That said I am currently missing two jumpers, four new pe socks (we have old battered ones) and a school hoodie one if which is locked up at the bus depot :s

'Also it was quite common for kids who weren't liked to have their kit stolen so they'd get into trouble!'

That's why lionguards view horrifies me. Child gets coat taken kids hide it. Child is scared of speaking up, You find it and bin it. Lovely..

Most sensible people put stuff in a lost property tub till the end of half term. Plenty of kids are in private on bursary or military families who don't have money to burn.

Not your responsibility to reunite everything no but how hard is it to say oh Jack I've got your designer jacket in my office, collect it by x or it goes in the bin.

I'm sure parents would be really impressed if they found out

'. I can’t understand how their parents are so patient/lax/wealthy enough to be able to accommodate such behaviour.'

Procrastination they aren't, I spend half of my life losing my shit because I've asked dc a billion times to look for a missing item. Unfortunately we aren't allowed in school to look ourselves.

All the kids in my care are wealthy enough to replace a pair of leans. Some are wealthy enough to replace a thousand pairs of jeans.

Anyone working in my job will tell you, you don't give out any more energy on stuff like this than the kids are prepared to expend. Only a fool would spend their working hours running round trying to reunite 55 teenagers with a hundred items of clothing.

I think my parents would rather I spent my time making sure they were healthy and achieving in school.

To be completely clear, the charity bin is a large bin at the recycling centre which says "clothes" on it. You tip bin bags full of clothes in. I presume they get shared out for charity or recycled. I haven't given it much thought.

So does the fact that they are wealthy enough to buy more clothes mean they can disregard the environmental effects of throwing away prefectly good items/

If you're in England any bins of the type you describe will be for cloth recycling. someone somewhere will be selling the stuff by the ton for very little money and I doubt any will go to charity. Child slave labour will make some more for your pupils parents to buy at inflated prices just so you can throw them away again.

I'm sure you and they don't care, it makes me sad for the next generation

They aren't my clothes.

But I think you're right - I doubt any of the kids care.

I'm not enjoying throwing all this stuff away. It's not me who loses it or doesn't care for my things! Like I said, if my child loses anything I conduct a fingertip search until it's found - but she's 4! I don't spend my valuable time running around after teenagers, doing things they should be doing themselves (like taking care of their clothes)

I still haven't got over my DS's brand new Mini Boden coat going missing from school last winter. It's infuriating as some thieving parent must know that their child was wearing my DS's coat.

So does the fact that they are wealthy enough to buy more clothes mean they can disregard the environmental effects of throwing away prefectly good items

The school I teach in is an less than affluent area. We are about 50% free school meals.
One year we went through the lost property, picked out all the clothes that were in good condition, washed them and sold them for next to nothing.
We sold about 3 jumpers. No one wanted it.

Sadly some parents will just decide it's a case of 'finders keepers'- they'll remove the labels and put their own child's name in it. Because stealing from a child is apparently perfectly acceptable!

And as teachers, we can't go around accusing parents of stealing, even if we think that the coat originally belonged to one child and is now on another. It shouldn't happen, but the parents that come in and scream at the teacher because the teacher won't demand that another parent return a coat that we have no proof they stole in the first place. Teacher's aren't police officers. They teach, not solve crimes.